Lupita Mañana: Chapters 4–6

“I wish we had a blanket,” she said wistfully.

As they walked along the highway, some cars came perilously close, as if the drivers were playing a cruel game with them.

The shopwindows were alight, filled with displays of gleaming silver or leather goods.

The loud, bouncy music of trumpets and guitars came at her from every direction. Every shop they passed blared music.

There was a color photograph of a long-haired woman, wearing a red spangled costume that covered even less of herself than the bathing suits the gringa tourists wore in Señor Aguilar’s swimming pool.

“Ay de mí.” The expression of dismay burst from Lupita as she looked at the border checkpoint.

Women selling bunches of great orange, yellow, and scarlet paper flowers; men selling menudo, a spicy tripe dish, from a cart; even a wild-haired fire-eater, who took a swallow of alcohol, put a lighted torch into his mouth, and blew red flames toward the passersby.

“You cannot go over there on credit if there is no one there ready to pay for you. So you must pay me now for your forged papers and to guide you across.”

Lupita didn’t wait to be ordered out again. Whirling around, she fled through the curtains and out through the shop into the sunlit street. Salvador stalked angrily behind her.

She gave her brother a beseeching look, but he only pushed harder.

Salvador crawled over to the side of the truck bed and opened the snap fasteners. Lupita sucked in her breath. Would the coyote hear? No. Salvador managed all very cunningly.

For a time the path they followed climbed; then it reached the crest of a hill and began to descend.

As she glanced to see what it was, an enormous shaft of brilliant white light stabbed her in the eyes.

“Help me! Help me!” The shrill wail of a girl rose above all the other noises.

Lupita stood transfixed, but Salvador jumped over the fallen gringo and ran to the young woman’s side.

The force of his rush sent the gringo sprawling, and, shouting and cursing in English, he rolled down the steep hillside.

He lumbered past her and dove into some tall shrubbery.

Stifling a wail, she watched as a patrolman took Salvador by the shoulder and led him over to the group of men bound for jail.

Stifling a wail, she watched as a patrolman took Salvador by the shoulder and led him over to the group of men bound for jail.

He realized in an instant what she had done. Grabbing her by the arm, he dragged her back to the park and cuffed her.

Then he pried open her fist, got hold of the coin, and threw it into the bushes.

She tried not to weep and betray the fact that she was a girl.

Lupita’s eyes went to the idle men sitting all about them. She knew that they, too, were looking for work.

Mamá would be surprised that she had not received any money from them. She would be wondering where they were, how they were faring, what kind of work they had found.

Looking back to their bench, she saw that it had a new tenant, a man who had lain on the sodden grass.

The boys clambered onto the truck.

Then Bartolo put the crate’s top back on. Looking through the slats, Lupita saw Salvador lie down in the crate next to her, the one nearest the tailgate of the truck.

Then the door slammed shut, and the truck started with a lurch. Crates began to slide over the wooden floor.

Salvador was out of his crate too, standing among rolling onions. He peered out along the side of the canvas curtain, pulled it back, and then vaulted over the tailgate.

They saw a small, overall-clad man with a wispy beard.

Bueno, some good luck at last, thought Lupita, as she brought up the rear of the little procession.

There was a steel ladder on the side of the hopper car.

She climbed up behind Salvador and stuck her head up over the turret.

Holding fast to Salvador, she crowded her slight body against his.

Lupita scrunched down, and Salvador quickly pulled the hatch shut as far as he could.